A brief summary of my daily computing environment: I use an android phone currently, iOS iPads, Osx on laptops, win8 on a desktop machine. I develop software components that target most of the above, as well as various flavors of linux for appliances and cloud hosted environments. On a less frequent basis I use a surface RT that I bought at launch. Each os has its pros and cons, each machine has its merits.

I have no emotional attachment to any os because deep down they aren’t all that differentiated. And I can’t afford the luxury of irrational attachment — I need to target users wherever they are, and I need to use tools that are the most efficient. My own usage, and that of most users, is inherently spread across many vendors and many oses, and I don’t see that changing. Multiplatform and interoperability is just a fact of life.

So when I said wanted ssh, I don’t want something better/different than ssh. I want exactly ssh because I need to connect to a variety of environments and ssh is the only reasonable common denominator. Powershell remoting may be super awesome and wonderful, but it doesn’t solve any problem I have, and just introduces a new non-interoperable tool and protocol with its attendant complexity. Not at all helpful — doesn’t save me time, just creates complexity. I am not saying that Powershell remoting is bad, it just isn’t useful in an inherently multiplatform environment. If your environment is Windows only, then by all means embrace Powershell if that works for you.

And when I say I want easy copy/paste, I don’t want copy/paste with some completely different keyboard and mouse interface. Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V and Cmd-C/Cmd-V have become second nature to me, I have a lot of muscle memory built up around those. Giving me copy/paste using some other keyboard interface or mouse interface is not very helpful (nor is command window text selection that works on blocks instead of lines). I don’t need or value innovation in the copy/paste interface, it doesn’t make me more productive.

So for those reasons, for me, OSX is substantially better than Windows as a development tool today. Which frustrates me because these are stupid little reasons, and there is no reason why Windows couldn’t add these features, it would only make Windows more valuable, and would make my life better. And frustrates me because I still have some affinity for Microsoft, and these seem like such petty features over which to alienate developers. If I was in charge, I’d make sure Windows was excellent at modern cross-platform devops, as well as having Windows-centric features. I can’t see the negative in this.